Present day.
Between Tenko's thighs, he hugged a gallon of varnish. In his pinkie-less hand, he held a wet paint brush, and in the other, a thermos of coffee. Taking one last sip, he set the half-full cup down before getting back to work.
The bare timber of the loft's staircase was half-way sealed, amber-gold and smooth to the touch. Though his lips were aching for a cig, he'd created an island of varnish around himself, and leaving meant abandoning the project.
His brush stroked horizontally three times, then shoved his bristles in a crack in the wood. He wasn't much of a painter, but the project had taken its time so far, and he'd learned to be thorough.
Before he could work his way up to the next step, however, his ass buzzed. He twisted this way and that, but soon realized he didn't quite have the space to be doing so as he almost toppled his thermos. In a stroke of genius, he stood up, almost spilling the varnish between his legs anyways. To be honest, it wouldn't have been that bad—it would've saved him varnishing time, at least, but if it spilled onto the new carpet, he might have blown his brains out.
Setting the gallon down on the step he'd been sitting on, he pulled his still-buzzing phone out and answered the caller.
"Mission?" Tenko asked. Instead of Jin's ugly mug staring back at him, however, there was just a dark rush of colors. What came out of the phone next was garbled nonsense, grating on his ears like metal grinding metal.
"Huh?" He asked, staring at the mess of the video. "What's going o—"
Bang! Lights flickered through the screen just as the sound of screams peaked the phone's speakers. Gunshots, fired on Jin's side of the phone, echoed around their flat. A second passed as a hailfire of bullets lit up his entire apartment. Machine guns, single-shot rifles, pistols, and a long-winded roar rebounded through his ears like he was physically there.
The speakers were screaming alongside the firefight and screams, but just as the violence crescendoed, it all went mute. The video was still a violent clash of color, but in the bottom corner, a little speech bubble began bouncing.
Boobaigawara: Ambush. 32nd street, 2.7 kilometers, need men. ETA?
Tenko was already half-way out the door, the carpet disheveled and beaten under his sneakers.
Jin had taken the car this morning, but that didn't matter much. Two and a half kilometers? It was almost a sprint.
Even as he dipped into the emergency contacts, he could hear the firefight. Though Tenko grew accustomed gunfire right outside his old window, hearing it in this neighborhood drenched him in a kind of sweat he wasn't used to.
He sent for backup to several groups—actual officers, Detnerat first-responders, and Meta Soldiers, but even as he sent the last message, his stomach was turning. Today, he'd taken off from work to finish the staircase, leaving Double to his lonesome. If he'd just done his damn job, he could've—
Explosions slammed against him from a street over, shaking his skull like a fishbowl. Below him, the concrete pavement was cracking, turning to sand under his flat palm. He tried tearing himself away, but before he could get to his feet, he fell back over, disoriented.
The smell is what brought him back to reality—it wasn't the normal smell of a bomb, or even the musty smell of smoke or sheer heat. No nitroglycerin, no burning sting, no boiled rubber—it smelled more like fuel, like a gas-fire.
Realization slapped him across the face like he was its bitch, forcing him to his feet. Bombs…or rather, someone's explosive-quirk was the signature of the Crow… and a certain jet-powered hero.
He was back on his feet and running before he remembered to give Jin his ETA. When he pulled his phone out of his pocket however, it felt wrong. The familiar feeling was now awkward—crooked and prickly. A glance confirmed his fear even as blood dripped down his palm.
It had shattered into a million glass-pieces, each fragment now dedicated to digging into his hand. Without a second thought, he tossed it aside. Already, he was around the block where Jin had indicated, and the gunfire louder than ever.
Turning the corner revealed the hellscape that had just been a rush of colors over the phone. He couldn't see Jin, but he noticed some of their colleagues on one half of the street. Without missing a beat, he did his best to weave between flipped cars and burning craters to reach them.
Before he could even reach half-way, however, a burst of fire pushed him behind an upturned car.
"Look! It's the partner! Get his ass!" Someone screamed, muffled. A peek through the shattered side-mirrors revealed a man's well-dressed lower half lit by the dying sparks of his accompanied flamethrower. Behind him was second, wider man, the tip of their down-facing rifle peeking just below his waistband.
Any second, they'd reach around his cover and fill him with holes. For a moment, he felt frozen; what did he do? Book it towards his colleagues' cover? Give up? Or would he try and fight?
The limbo snapped as the shoulder of the flamethrower-wielding psycho made its appearance. It was do or die, and something deep in his gut made the decision for him.
Before being roasted, he siezed the man by the throat and separated him from his heavy-duty weapon. Instead of slamming the small man into the floor at full strength, he swung the man's body toward his partner's rifle barrel. In his partner's brief millisecond of hesitation, Tenko used the first man to shield-bash the second, knocking both men down.
While they were moaning and groaning, Tenko eroded the flamethrower. A glance to the psychotic duo reminded him that there were more pressing matters, so he snagged the rifle for himself.
As soon as it was in his hands, he felt his heart in his stomach. That pulsing wave of heat in his gut spread out, infecting his veins and flowing throughout his body like poison. When it reached his fingertips, they began to move on their own. As if in a trance, he twisted the rifle this way and that, noting everything. Half-mag, safety off, crooked scope, overheated barrel, and close to a jam. His fingers did all the work, Tenko only able to watch as they corrected all these errors.
He tore a full mag from the large man's holster, adjusted the scope, and fingered the chamber to correct the awkward angle of the next bullet. The butt of the rifle slid to his shoulder as he peeked through the scope and decided it was good enough.
The crosshair of the rifle was dead still in the air where he held it, but it began drifting as he finished his inspection. Its face settled on the face of the large man, his features magnified by triple.
Beady eyes, a lengthy beak, and black shining skin stared back up at Tenko. The plague mask was wider than his flame-thrower friend's, but it was still as recognizable as any Crow mask he'd ever seen. His fingers, still under their own command, caressed the trigger—but the moment they applied an ounce of pressure, Tenko tore his scope away, pointing it towards a murder of goons as they began running at him, firing.
Tenko didn't register the recoil as he sprayed his name in cursive over their heads, forcing them to dive for cover. Below him, the small one was fidgeting as he regained his bearings. As for the big fucker, he was already half-way sitting up, an elbow planted behind him for support. Though their Crow masks hid their identity well, it did little to protect their weak spots.
The steel toe of his boot cracked the large man's mask as it connected with his temple. He didn't even bother kicking the small one—a simple rifle-butt to the cheek sufficed.
He sent one more volley over the upturned car before swapping clips and peeking again. The remaining Crow were still in cover, occasionally sending a bullet hail or quirk-projectiles—globs of slush, bizarre crystals, any debris they could get their hands on—but were otherwise hiding from his bullet hail.
Blood drummed in his ears as his eyes bounced between the downed men and his colleagues. Thoughts flickered through him like a movie reel without the mindful sequence. Concern for Jin was his first thought—the old dog was good at his job, but he knew his training wasn't a fraction as intense as Tenko's own, and he'd never seen the man in a firefight of this scale. He was a lousy shot, too—oftentimes more of a negotiator than a fighter, but when shit got rough, he was a brawler more so than a marksman.
The worry extended to Jin's team, though to a lesser extent. Then there were these two fuckers unconscious at his feet. They hadn't gotten a chance to use their quirks before he took them down, so Tenko had no idea whether they were useful without their weapons. He blinked hard—the whisper to kill them was more intense than the volume suggested.
His fingers slipped from the rifle's grip, the digits stretching in place. They were in cover, so no one would know if he did it—and he doubted the street cameras were still functional. Fires raged all around, so even if the actual cameras were still intact, there was no way the powerlines still functioned.
Bang! In his hesitation, he'd forgotten to keep good cover. A bullet grazed his neck—the bite had no teeth, but it was a deep enough nick to draw blood. His free hand slapped against the wound as he shuddered, the filth of his palm stinging the open flesh. Given he was not dead on the ground, he figured he was safe from bleeding to death—but the pain was acute and the slippery blood debilitating.
In a flash, he ripped the Crow's mask from the small one's face and tore the back strap from its back. The strap was the width of a belt and thick enough to work as a bandage. Within seconds, he secured it around his neck like a collar. It itched like crazy and made turning his head difficult, but Tenko'd have to deal with it.
With his wound dealt with, he popped over the car feet first, his rifle already blazing even before his sneakers hit the ground. Any confidence the gangsters had regained crashed as they dipped back into cover. Tenko kept up a heavy fire-rate as he ran the final stretch to his colleague's home base. When his mag was empty and his cover and new cover mere seconds away, he dusted the weapon and did a sliding tackle behind a dumpster, colliding with something hard.
Tenko ignored his instincts to slap whoever grabbed him, instead throwing in an elbow as a pair of sharp clamps bit into his shoulders. He thrashed in place, but recoiled as someone shoved the handle-end of a pistol into his hands.
Blinking away the adrenaline revealed a crustacean—or rather, a lobster mutant—one who Jin often found himself working alongside. He'd never caught his name, but now didn't seem the time.
The pistol was unfamiliar, but his fingers still knew what to do. They knew how many bullets were inside, how to cock it, how to shoot it. If the situation hadn't been so dire, they would've taken it apart to explore its innards and function, but the situation was dire, and the violence of the mainstreet was spilling into the alleyway.
Around them were six other Metas, and every single one had a matching pistol. Tenko's eyes bounced from face to face, trying to recognize who was who and put a name to each person, but he came up blank each time.
"Good fucking shit getting here, Begone! Do we have back-up or not?" The crustacean said, mandibles clicking together. Another man—ashen white, even down to his hair—peeked around the corner to return fire.
"Just me for now, but I called just about everybody. What's the story here? And where's Double?"
His response seemed to dim the crustacean's excitement—though the question did more to his morale than the announcement that back-up was still a way's off.
"No clue. Crow blew some hospital sky-high, so we did what we do. But before we could even reach Ground Zero, we ran into whoever blew the shit beak-first. Had this massive fucker with them, tall as two fuckin' dudes, raggedy mask, and meaner than hellfire. We came with eight, but he tore poor Shrieker apart, and we only got out on a miracle. Once we settled here, Double was nowhere to be found."
Tenko's grip on his pistol tightened, hearing the news. He gave it a good look, and wondered how his aim would be. His hands together could work a rifle, but pistols were a different story. He couldn't shoot with his main hand—it'd turn to dust when he pulled the trigger, and off-handed aim left something to be desired.
Still… If Tenko knew Double as well as he thought he did, then there was only one place he could be.
"Where's Ground Zero?"
The crustacean tilted his head at him, his mandibles clicking together in confusion.
"Corner of the block, north side. Why?"
"Well, dumbass, now I gotta go there and grab the decoy you fuckin' left behind! If Double isn't dead already, he's gonna kick your ass."
"Wait, what—" The crustacean tried to say, but Tenko wasn't hearing it. Already he'd shoved his way out into the alleyway, ducking into the cover of collapsed bus-stop overhang. Several Metas called him back, but he brushed their concerns off like the ash clinging to his hair. They weren't his commanding officers; they were barely acquaintances, and certainly not friends. No friend of his would leave Double behind.
As luck would have it, the path between that alley and Ground Zero was clear of debris—the explosion must have swept its destruction aside, leaving only ash. He only fired two shots, both toward a plague-masked Crow; but the man didn't bleed when one of the bullets hit his shoulder, and Tenko then knew he was already dead.
Visions of an undestroyed street overlapped with reality, guiding him to a vacant lot that hadn't been so empty the day before. Beside the smoking heap that was formerly a hospital were half-destroyed buildings—all missing a wall nearest to the former building. The Crow's bombings had always been volatile, yes, but this one seemed… more intense. Like a new concoction, or a bigger load.
The closer he got, the harder it became to breathe. Smoke and ash floated through the air like fog, filling his throat and eyes and ears. Tears pricked in his eyes as he blinked—but he stayed guided by muffled sounds in the smog. A wet, flesh-on-flesh smacking sound echoed through the area like a machine gun, rapid and unending and cruel. He followed the short bursts of violence like a church's bell, pulling him into its source.
The smoke at this point was black, and when he tried to step deeper within it, he found he could not. There was a glow—one muffled by smoke—but one nonetheless, and it felt like marble under his fingers.
He gave it a light push with the tips of his fingers, and the glowing wall fell away before him.
"Oh lord." A voice said, growing more clear as Tenko stepped into the darkness of the smoke. "Rappa! Someone's penetrated the barrier. Stop playing with your food and handle it."
Tenko only had a blink to realize two things. One: that there was no smoke beyond the golden wall. Two: that a bowling-ball sized fist was rocketing toward his skull with the lethal clarity of a missile.
He sidestepped, but not enough to avoid the attack entirely. His collarbone cracked instantly, but he spun with the momentum, evading a second, third, and fourth punch of even greater magnitude.
"Rahahaha! This one's wiggly, Hekiji! Like a snake avoiding the prongs of a pitchfork!" The massive man said, cackling. Pain dazed him, but his half-focused eyes made out the visage of three individuals; a slim, robe-wearing older man and the ox who'd attacked him. Behind the both was a woman—though he couldn't say whether she was with them or a captive, given her shaken disposition. He turned his head—or tried, before wincing as the crushed bone of his shoulder screamed at him. Still, he pushed through, the smell of blood too heavy.
His vision swam; objects elongated and scrunched without warning just as colors faded and blended awkwardly. Still, no amount of visual haze could confuse the scene before him.
It was a body, that much was obvious. Beaten and misshapen and more bloody than not, but it was familiar. Jin's chest rose and fell with the consistency of mud. Globulous, wet inhales matched dry, thin exhales; and for a brief, nauseating millisecond, there was no breathing at all.
Tenko scrambled over to the body with impunity. Rappa seemed more amused than offended at his shift in attention, and Hekiji seemed preoccupied with avoiding the smoke .
The pain was a non-factor as he slid to his knees, cupping Jin's head under his arms.
"Double! Double, are you awake!?" Tenko asked. Jin's only response was to loll his head to the side and spit up blood. His pulse was faltering; not weak, but uneven—more inconsistent than faded.
It struck Tenko that this wasn't the first time they'd been in such a situation; only this time, the positions were reversed, and there was no one to help. He bit through the pain as he cast another glance around, his eyes settling on the finer details.
The older man's hands clasped as if in prayer, golden flecks floating around his limbs like adrift snowflakes. As Tenko watched, those golden snowflakes hiccuped in place, before fleeing from him in droves. Together, they reached the half-eroded golden barrier and filled its gaps anew. It came to Tenko's attention that they were in a quirk's bubble, and that it was this old bastard's power that both kept the smoke out and Double in. In addition to filling the cracks, a smaller bubble formed around the woman, who began to bang on its walls from within.
The behemoth, on the other hand, stood with far less grace. His shoulders hunched forward, his arms hanging by his sides in a stance of pure carelessness. Steam rose from his thick, corded muscles like winter breaths, his power apparent in his sheer body heat.
Drip, drip. Blood flowed from Rappa's fists freely, as if forgotten. It was no wound that made him bleed, however—each drop from his stained hands were taken from Double's caved-in chest. He made no effort to wipe his hands clean, and when Rappa caught him looking, he grinned.
A blood-soaked pinkie slipped into his mouth and came away clean. Tenko blinked, realizing he'd stood up and stepped over Double's downed body.
Four of his five nails were scratching at his jean's pant leg. One careful finger remained dutifully straight, but the force at which he kept it so sent a stinging pain down his wrist—fingers weren't meant to bend that far backwards, after all.
Iron coated his tongue, but its source could've been anyone's guess. A ringing in his head blocked out everything. The pounding in his skull, the taunting laugh of Rappa, and the low hum of the force field fell away. All that remained were the miniscule echoes of Double's blood dropping to the ground.
Jin Bubaigawara. A bit of a bastard; crafty, annoying, offensive, and in few ways pleasant. He hadn't done much good in his life, but he'd been a dedicated man and did great service till the end, and Tenko would be fucking damned if someone like that's life went to waste.
Hekiji might've said something; but Tenko didn't catch it. His mask obscured all but his eyes, and his words fell on deaf ears. Still, even he could recognize the way Rappa seemed rejuvenated, his corded muscles growing taunt under his thin shirt.
Tenko's heart fluttered, bile burning in his throat. His chin trembled as Rappa took steps towards him, his grip on his pistol so tight he worried he might deform the handle. He was shaking like a tree in a flood.
Rappa's chest stopped an inch out of his arm's reach, his pectorals just a bit higher than his eyeline. Tenko did not raise his eyes to see the man's mask. Instead, his eyes settled down to the man's fists, still resting at his flanks like holstered guns.
Advice floating in one of his ears and out the other, the tone intimate and familiar and unwholesome. It was something Jin had told him once, when he was still convinced Tenko would brawl with him if only he had a little instruction as to how.
"In the fighting world, what matters isn't an opponent's eyes, or the gait, or their footwork. It doesn't matter if they're twice your size or a dwarf. It doesn't matter if there's a black belt around their waist or a white one; it doesn't matter if they have a golden buckle or a stainless steel one. What matters are their fists, and hitting them before they hit you. Watch the hands, and react accordingly"
The millisecond the behemoth's fists twitched, Tenko clocked him on the chin at full strength. The man stumbled back, one, step, two steps, and then a third—but stopped there. With a single neck-tilt, a crack pierced through the cotton in Tenko's ears, bringing reality rushing back to him.
Rappa's fist cut into his cheek, drawing his blood even as Tenko began weaving between his strikes. His fists were like an engine's, inhuman and unending and unstoppable by human muscles. It took everything just to remain alive and functional; there were no opportunities to counter attack, no error in the man's form to exploit. Tenko was his elusive punching bag and little more, but what he did have at his disposal he kept close.
The barrages came at three second intervals, lasting for five seconds each. Between those barrages, a golden barrier would erect around him, protecting him as he cooled down. It took two whole cycles for Tenko to understand that pattern, and he kicked himself for it.
Through his next barrage, a flash of annoyance overcame him; a brawler, attacking him so brazenly? Did he not know that he could finish this fight in an instant should he so choose? It was within this sliver of thought that his fingers curled together, his nails aiming to dig into the man's bicep.
Time slowed to a crawl as his middle and forefinger ghosted over the monster's skin, the rest not far behind. An orgasmic elation ran through him like an electric shock—he would vanquish this monster who had hurt his roommate. He'd erode his corded muscles to nothing and grind his bones to dust, and then he would kill his weakling of a partner—but he wouldn't stop there. He'd kill everyone who'd hurt his colleagues, who'd blown up this perfectly good building. Crow would fall tonight, and it'd be him who'd lead the charge. He'd take back what Kai Chisaki had stolen from him, conquer what remained of his men, and lead a death march on the world.
And it would start with this bastard right in front of him. The one who hurt his friend—who hurt him.
Yet as his ring finger caught up, he hesitated, and pulled away.
He hadn't killed someone in years. Even throughout the last seven months of working together with Jin, he'd avoided it. Tenko left the brawls to his more wide-framed partner, more often wearing a glove than not. Today had been the first time he'd even handled a gun in memory—though he struggled to find that to be a reasonable deduction of his past.
Instead of reaching out to pluck Rappa's soul with a touch, he steadied his aim with his good hand. He fired two debilitating shots, both aimed at his shoulders. The first one lodged itself in the man's delt, but the other ricocheted off the sudden appearance of a golden barrier.
"Fuck!" Rappa screamed, backstepping from the force of the bullet. "You little bastard! Don't fucking ruin my fun just because you're too puny to keep up!"
Tenko could only stand there as Rappa shattered his partner's own protective barrier and slammed his massive fists into Tenko's skull. He was helpless as he flew into the outer barrier, cracks appearing out from where he impacted it. Something within him hurt, and Tenko wasn't sure whether to try and count what was broken or what wasn't. Maybe it was his neck. Hopefully.
Two behemoths stood over him, one pivoting clockwise around like the second hand on a clock. His world turned upside down as the massive man picked him up by the ankle. He decided his spine was still mostly intact, as the pain was just as poisonous as ever. The hole in his leg—from where the bullet had ricocheted back into him—burned with a traitorous ache.
The mens' free fist wrecked his stomach, a thousand impacts from a normal man incomparable to the two blows Rappa gave him. Blood spurted from his mouth alongside something thicker. Maybe it was vomit. Maybe it was an organ.
"Finish him, Rappa, and be done with him. We've got our information." Hekiji said, turning away. Tenko felt, rather than saw, Rappa's shoulder's slump.
"Yeah, whatever. Guess this guy was small fry after all."
Rappa reared one last fist back. With Tenko's position, he was more easily able to feel the way he leaned into it, the way the power gathered in his shoulder, the way his muscles aligned themselves into a punch designed to gore Tenko straight through.
"You disappointed me, little snake. Your opener made me think you were more of a python, but that's all it was—an opener. You're just a garden snake… an appropriate prey for us Crows, eh?"
Watch the hands, and react accordingly. Tenko closed his eyes.
Rappa's perfect punch sprung, and gored him through.
Pain wracked his form, but no more than before. In fact, all he could feel was the light brush of the man's knuckles on his chest, no more dangerous than a statue's. There was, however, a foreign warmth trickling down onto Tenko's shirt from the contact. It was hot to the touch, flowing down—or was it up?—his shirt, and split into two streams past his jaw and stained his scalp.
He cracked an eye open, and understood.
Double stood between them, Rappa's fist punctured straight through his sternum. Gray blood and gore and bones painted the man's fist. From Tenko's angle, it was impossible to see the man's face, but he could make out the words.
"C-c-come on, now… I know y-you have more in you than th-that…" Jin Bubaigawara gurgled, before trailing off, his still-kicking legs slowing to a stop. Tenko's heart was in his throat, the acidic burning of bile biting the back of his tongue.
"J-Jin…"
"Yeah…" Rappa muttered, allowing the dead man to slide off his arm, his body landing with a wet squelch. "Playing possum might've been better for him there. Well—I don't really care either way. The less loose ends the better."
Ba-Dump.
"Oh, he was still alive? I forgot." Hekiji said. "Hurry on now. Before a hero arrives on scene."
Ba-Dump. Ba-Dump.
"Don't threaten me with a good time, Shield."
"You…?" Tenko whispered, the heat deep within spreading out into his limbs, into his fingertips. "You…"
Ba-Dump. Ba-Dump. Ba-Dump.
"Fine, fine. If you want to die so badly…" Rappa said, dropping Tenko to the floor. He took a step over him, planting a boot onto his pistol-hand. "Then just hold still!"
The bindings deep within him, held together by a mountain of guilt and sheer will, snapped.
"You fucking bastard!"
He tore his hand against Rappa's pant leg, every nail cutting into him like claws. For a second, Rappa just snorted, annoyed by the pathetic slap, but quickly realized what was happening.
"W-wait, what? Shield! My leg—it burns!? It burns!"
Rappa jumped away from him—or at tried. His ankle snapped as he put force into it, and within seconds broke away from him entirely.
The desire to go after him and beat him to death surged through him, but his strength was null. All he could do was inch himself towards Jin, a weak hand reaching out to touch him as his vision flickered, darkening. He managed to slap his palm against something—but it wasn't Jin. It was wet, and soft like clay. He reached somewhere else, but the feeling stayed consistent, and Tenko found himself sinking deeper and deeper into darkness as he realized that he couldn't find Jin's body.
Overhead, he was aware of something breaking.
[x]
"Airforce Impact!" Ingenium roared as he crashed against the golden dome, shattering it into a million pieces. "Jet team, scout! Locomotive team, subdue!"
He prepared himself for visceral battle—the survivors they'd already found had warned him of a massive fighter of incomprehensible power, and Ingenium knew he was the only hero capable enough to even try.
Yet when the smoke cleared the golden shards of the dome had faded, he came face to face with an odd sight. The ground warped and rippled, as if the solid concrete had the malleability of a blanket. There was an odd crease in the ground, like a scar stitched together with dental floss. Though, it was what remained that confused and terrified him.
One corpse, a puddle of mud, and a pile of dust. He rushed over to the bodies, inspecting them for protocol—only to realize that the corpse wasn't quite as dead as he thought.
Though his breath was shallow and his chest brutalized beyond belief, the young bluenette seemed to still have a beating heart.
"Heli team! We need a doctor!"
[x]
Da-da-da-da. Da-da-da—da. Da—da-da—da. Da-da-da-da.
To Rikiya, there were only two sounds in his office. The dull rhythm of his fingers, and the slow chugging of blood through his head. Besides his fingers, he was dead still. His clenched jaw did not creak, his nostrils did not flare, and his eyelids did not twitch. The analogue clock that adorned his wall for three years lay in a trash bin, its glass face shattered and metal heart crumpled. There were only two sounds in his office.
For a brief moment, he felt the itch. The itch to pull out his phone, to shoot Double a request for some coffee. If only to have someone to talk to, if only to be able to see his face.
But he couldn't do that, now. Jin was dead. KIA. Under his order. The drumming of his fingers ceased.
Jin Bubaigawara. Loyal to a fault. One of his favorite agents; perhaps his favorite. Another thing the Crow has taken. Another reason to take them down.
Stress strummed the strings of his heart as it devoured the feeling, and Rikiya felt a muted annoyance. God, he thought. He just wanted to grieve.
He planted both elbows into his desk as he ran his fingers through the thin wisps of his remaining hair. Double was dead; just ashes in a jar, now. There hadn't been a service, as according to his will, but god, he wished there had been. He had so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to thank the man for.
Oh god, he thought, thinking of his niece. How was he supposed to tell her that 'Uncle Jin wasn't gonna come around anymore?
Even now, he felt that concern drift away, falling between his fingers like sand. He reached out, tried his best to block out Stress's influence, yet it still left him with nauseating, hollow nothingness.
In a final burst of defiance, he tore open his lowest desk drawer and retrieved a pen and paper. Before the depression abandoned him in its fullest, he must write it down. He must remember—forgetting this feeling would be to forget Jin, to forget the Crow.
He pressed his pen into the yellow paper as if trying to punch straight through it, his words heavy and thick with dwindling passion. What he wrote wasn't necessarily good sense; rather, he focused on putting it all down, to upload everything before it disappeared for good. Flow was abandoned, ignored, and trodden down as he burned through a page. One page wasn't enough to contain him, however, and it took a second and third before he began to run out of unique descriptions. He circled back, then, underlining and circling what mattered and smearing the still-wet ink where it didn't.
His frenzy came crashing to a stop as something shattered outside his office door—glass, maybe ceramic.
"—uck!" Came from outside, muffled and quiet, but distinctive by the power of repetition. "-uck, fuck, -ck, -amn it, dam–, fuck, FUCK!"
Rikiya could only muster a surprise blink as his three-inch thick rebar-infused oak door shook on its hinges, three viscous booms nearly tearing it from its home on the wall. Rikiya didn't have time to hide his writing; whoever was on the other side of his door only gave him enough time to flip the papers upside down.
The door slammed open, the only thing saving his wall being the in-built doorstopper. Even as the pressurized pistons silenced the would-be boom, Rikiya still flinched as if they hadn't. The would-be boom echoed through his skeleton like tangible force, shaking his body and spirit alike.
Standing in the doorway was Tomura Shigaraki—Tenko, he reminded himself—held up by two stainless steel crutches. Bandages and braces adorned his body like a new fashion, only just holding him together. Rikiya stumbled to his feet, unsure what to do—it'd only been a few days since the accident, and Tenko was in no way ready to be walking. He'd broken several bones, been shot through the thigh, and otherwise been brutalized beyond description.
"What are you doing here—"
Before the question was even out, Tenko stumbled, falling into a kneel. Rikiya winced, seeing how the impact on his bad leg jarred him. He hurried around his desk to help the young man, but he brushed off his touch like a paper-man would an ifrit. Tenko shook as he struggled to his feet, his bad knee quivering under the ordeal. It was all he could do to give the man some space as he trudged from the entrance to his desk, planting a steadying fist on its corner.
Tenko breathed like a pug, his face a mess of bandages as his crimson eyes settled on Rikiya. When he spoke, it sounded like his throat was pure tree bark.
"They killed him," He said, hoarse and dry and oh-so-furious. "So I killed one back."
Rikiya's eyes widened, his heel shifting back a smidge.
"O-oh? Why are you here, though? You need your rest—I can take your report when you're back on your feet—"
"I am already on my fucking feet! Use your damn eyes, 'Destro. Don't you fucking see? T-they tried to kill me, and I'm already on my goddamn feet!"
"Y-yes, it's very commendable, my friend, but—"
"Don't fuckin' call me that! I—" Tenko paused here, drawing in a thick breath. It was like a sailor trying to dump water overboard, despite the car-sized hole in the hull. "I… I'm not your friend. Not like he was. Not like Jin. I don't fuckin' want to be."
Rikiya's other heel shifted back, suddenly feeling cramped. His office may have been the size of a penthouse, but in any cage you shared with a tiger was too small.
"That's A-Okay with me, Tenko, I just want to—"
"Would you just shut up already? Listen, I'm not here to be your friend, but…"
Tenko slouched for a split second, leaning into the hand holding him upright as an obvious pain wracked his form. Rikiya shifted, at this moment, to the otherside of his desk. He didn't quite touch the emergency button, but he placed his fingers on its rim.
"I—"
"What," Tenko said, a wet cough interrupting him, "happened to shutting up?"
The man flinched as some invisible demon attacked him then, forcing another coughing fit out of him. Rikiya's fingers fidgeted, growing a smidge heavier onto the emergency button—not enough to activate it, but enough to press it in a bit.
"...Go on then, if this is so important."
Tenko's shoulders convulsed one last time before he retracted his hand from the desk. He rolled his shoulders in place, nothing in his face giving away the obvious pain it caused him. His crutches fell away behind him, leaving him standing on his own two feet, be it at an awkward angle.
His hands jerked together as they began to unravel the wrappings around his fingers, and Rikiya held back the dry swallow the sight of them invoked. When his five digits were free, he reached up to his head and unwrapped what bandages remained on his face, giving Rikiya the full picture of his fury.
There was a wildness to his features that hadn't been apparent before. Though his face had always held substantial eczema scarring, there was a distinction to his lips and eyelid that he'd never noticed before; like cracks of lightning over his right eyelid and left dimple. The pools of blood that constituted his eyes did those scars a service, too. There was a glow to them that washed his face in a haze of unnatural light, highlighting the coarse skin like desert dunes in sunset. Rikiya got the feeling that if they stood on opposite ends of a pitch-black hall, he'd still be able to count the pink veins in his sclera.
"...We aren't friends, Re-Destro, but I've worked for you through Jin for half a year. I can't imagine a world where I'll ever respect you half as much as I did him, but I think… we can come to an understanding. You want the Crow gone, and I want to… remove them. But I'm out of shape—I haven't stretched my legs in a while, you see, and I need to shake the rust off."
Rikiya blinked, his fingers easing off the emergency button.
"Are you… asking to lead the charge, Tenko? I thought killing wasn't… your thing."
"What I'm asking is the ability to crush Chisaki, 'Destro. If that means giving me a team, suit yourself. But what I want is the time, and the resources to train. Give me that, and you won't need to find a squad."
Rikiya ran a tongue over his lower lips, considering the young man before him. Something was different about him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Still… so the prince shall ask, so the prince shall receive.
He removed his fingers from the emergency button entirely, threading them together as he slipped into his chair. Tenko did not turn to watch him; only following him with his eyes. An absent-minded hand came up to scratch at his neck through the bandages. Kicking an ankle over his knee, he gave the young man his best smile.
"We here at Deternerat have state-of-the-art training tech for heroes… and Soldiers alike. You'll have your opportunity, Tenko. You're already quite formidable, so I'm quite interested in what you appear as "without the rust."
For a moment, it seemed as though Tenko couldn't hear him, given his dull reaction. It was like staring at a marble statue; dull and lifeless and no sign of intelligence, yet there was something he couldn't quite place.
Without otherwise shifting a millimeter, the young man's cracked lips broke into a smile. It was wider than felt natural; a dribble of blood cascaded down his chin from where the grin split a lip-scab. His spine straightened, as if having forgotten the burden of his injuries
"Good shit… sir. I'll be expecting it by morning."
He turned then, and made to leave without picking his crutches back up. Rikiya watched as Tenko paused at the threshold, the profile of his blood-stained smile reappearing through the shaggy baby blue locks.
"Oh… and 'Destro?"
"Yes?"
"Call me Tomura."
[x]
AN: And thats the end of Tenko... or Tomura month? Which is which? Is there even a difference? Will Tenko ever come back? Who knows. Well, I kinda do, but thats besides the point! For the people skimming this chapters, fear no longer: We're back to the regularly scheduled program next week. I hope you'll enjoy it. Look forward to chapter 38! Its a banger I think.
Honestly, I thought I'd have more to say. I suppose I could say that the prologue is about over, but that's a ballzy statement. Who knows-but I can say the Era of U.A. is incoming, ten chapters after the first exam arc even began. I never thought the burn would be this slow, but hell, I'm having fun, and I see some of you guys are too. I hope y'all stick around.
Review~!